Aging population, costs behind falling number of pet dogs in Japan

Loneliness is hard but cheap too

cant agree with the term “dog Owners”, as usually dogs control their owner

I can attest to this "fact"! lol! There are plenty of days that I get the feeling that we are HIS pets!

Having a dog increases your lifespan by 10 years.

Dog owners worldwide enjoy longer lifespans on average, reduced blood pressure, improved cardiovascular fitness, and far less stress. ... Dog owners worldwide enjoy longer lifespans on average, and the company a canine provides makes those extra years of life more gratifying.

cant agree with the term “dog Owners”, as usually dogs control their owner.

As Hemingway wrote in a short story about a cat-owner who died, "... and cats can look after themselves".

Well, paying 200,000 yen for a yappie shi tzu that you can dress up in pink with frills as a proto-human baby to carry around outside on walkies - it could be that more people are grasping the reality of keeping pets nowadays.

Somehow I don't think so.

Also behind the trend is a surge in the prices of pet dogs. Regulations tightened under a revised animal protection law have triggered a fall in the number of breeders, which has dented pet dog supply.

Down here in Okinawa a major pet store, starting next year, will stop selling breeder raised dogs and work with customers to find rescue animals instead. It is VERY hard to get breeder information from these "suppliers" and many are shady to say the least! The faster the go out of business the better!

But cat owners are not free from concerns either. According to the Environment Ministry, some 46,000 cats were killed in fiscal 2016 through March 2017 by public health authorities, compared with about 10,000 dogs. Although the figure includes stray cats, many are former pet cats believed to have been abandoned.

Out of this number here, nearly 7,000 dogs and cats, are put to sleep here in Okinawa yearly. This is a serious problem, and there are a number of rescue organizations that have been working hard to saving many of these furry friends and place them in homes where they are wanted.